After I’d read that the Trump shooter had looked at photos of Trump and Biden and their upcoming speech locations and the fact that the shooter was a lone wolf and bullied at school, I read part of the Wikipedia page about the Uvalde shooting . The Uvalde shooter also was a lone wolf and also used an AR-15. My thoughts right now are like this :
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The lone wolfs probably have suffered badly from an inferior complex due to bullying and alienation
and wanted to do something which made them feel historically “significant” instead of feeling completely “useless”. -
The US appears to have a pretty dominant machismo culture (Think about GOP with their MAGA, it is humiliating for women and minority groups) and so-called snowflakes are looked down upon. This is very bad for everyone involved.
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Cops are afraid of citizens having an AR-15 on them.
What can be done ?
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Should vote with our wallets ? Like stop using exTwitter now that Elon Musk has publicly shown support for Trump ? (On Mastodon I’ve seen many comments about people that did cancel their subscription to the New York Times and that seemed to have some effect. Finally the NYT is posting more critical articles about Trump and Project 2025.)
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Should people talk more often to each other and avoid alienation ? In books of Gabor Maté he talks about the fact that most people in society look down on hard drug addicts but these junkies are still human beings. And the same goes for homeless people and refugees of course. They are still human beings. No need to automatically view them as inferior beings, right ?
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Should we limit our screen time on mobile phones ? Are we silently producing a sort of zombies that cannot think for themselves anymore ? Should tech companies be obliged to make phone apps less addictive ?
Should mobile phone usage during class in school be forbidden ? -
Should we promote exchange projects as part of cultural improvement ? Like say 50 people from Congo Republic in Africa swap places with 50 people from California for 1 year, and then after swapping back talk about the experiences.
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Should we in our education system or during leisure time educate people more on what happened in World War II and what we can still learn from that ? For example the book by Umberto Eco about how to recognize a fascist ( Ur-Fascism ) could be used.
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Should bullying at school be pro-actively approached and make victims and bullies talk to each other under professional supervision ?
The US has too many guns. QED
The only country with the problem wonders why there’s a problem.
Overanalyzing is a feature, not a bug.
Yep. This is it, anything else is just fluff. You need to fix that before “stop using X” will have any effect.
How do you think we should take care of that?
We can make owning guns as simple as it is to own and operate a car. A gun owners exam and insurance against your gun accidents.
Edited to add: Wecan also make it so that you as a gun owner are prepared to save a life until paramedics show up in case there are gun accidents. You want a tool that has the power to take a life? You Need to learn how to save one.
The gun groups I’m part of have regular Stop The Bleed seminars/training. Ive put a lot of practice TQs on myself, we’ve gone over wound packing, hell even how to convince someone expirencing blood loss to not loosen the tourniquet because no your arm/leg isnt going to go so numb it dies and yes it DOES need to be this tight. Id recommend gun owners to own a comprehensive first aid kit and an individual first aid kit.
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“You’re gonna need a constitutional convention for that”
Like Europe.
- The US should improve treatment of mental health issues.
- The US should recover public confidence in its political system.
The things you have suggested are just distractions away from these two points and won’t fix anything.
I agree with you, but it’s important to address the elephant in the room of our absolute stockpile of and the ease of access to weapons of war. Not just pdw or hunting, you can get some really cool shit, with less effort than it takes to get your license in many places.
I like guns the same way I like high end fireworks/ordinance, they are definitely fun, but it shouldn’t be so easy to get them and the folks who base their identity around them are sad/scary af.
That’s my issue. The ease with which you can obtain high-end fire arms is too high. I have to do a written test, 30+ supervised hours of driving by another person, then pass a skills test, to get a vehicle license.
Meanwhile, I can walk into a store in my state and walk out with an AR15 today. I can then open carry that AR15 wherever I please. There is a background check for federally licensed dealers, but no other sales. I don’t need to register it. I don’t need training to carry it amongst the public. The biggest barrier to obtaining one is the cost.
Part of the issue with the attempt on Trump was the guy was outside the SS perimeter, so they didn’t have “jurisdiction”, and the guy was following PA laws for the most part up until he pulled the trigger.
But that’s only a small issue if you look at the actual murder stats. The vast majority of deaths by gun are not committed with “high-end firearms” with only an average 3% of homicides involving rifles. Knives and blunt instruments kill many times more people than rifles. Cheap handguns are the number one firearm used in homicides.
Don’t disagree. Just limited my scope because the discussion was on the Trump attempt, and used the “high-end” version of firearms because that should arguably be more heavily regulated because of the amount of damage they could cause.
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I hadn’t seen that; the last “official” position I saw on it was that it was still in question on how he obtained it, but that it was presumed to be his father’s. But even then, that highlights difficulties with gun ownership. Someone giving me a car doesn’t grandfather me in to use, so if it was gifted from his father, that bypasses some current checks. If it was a gun his father owned that he took, then it likely wasn’t secure as it should be, again failing the traditional gun safety terms and responsible ownership.
I think you are correct about the mental health issues. It scares me that the health care is private, and not all can afford it
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Yes, we’re underfunded as hell on mental health services but the person that thinks mass murder is the best solution to their problems is probably not going to opt in to treatment.
If that is indeed true, my follow up questions would be “why not?” and “how do we solve that?”.
Probably awareness. There should be a public hotline at well known as 9-1-1 that anyone can call for counseling and referrals. There should also be an expectation or pathway to retaining your rights. It’s probably policy in many states that to check yourself in to a mental health facility means you have to work 10x harder to get a job, a gun, or even vote someday down the line when you’re in a better state.
The US should improve treatment of mental health issues.
The US should recover public confidence in its political system.The things you have suggested are just distractions away from these two points and won’t fix anything.
Your point about mental health issues is about the victim being bullied or being avoided by others I guess ?
If I refuse to buy Nike shoes like all others, and if I decide to wear all black clothes with heavy metal shirts and I prefer to read books rather than talk loud and the rest of my class mates avoid me for reasons, does that mean I need to get therapy ?I think anyone who wishes harm on another has some issues they need to work through. Not just people who want to shoot up schools or whatever, but also people who feel so much hate for certain minority groups, or get too involved in sensationalist media.
I honestly think giving each child a yearly “checkup” with a psychologist where they can air greivences and get support would improve the quality of life of so many children.
So many people are scared and angry nowadays (and for good reason), yet don’t know if any healtht coping mechanisms.
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The only real takeaway is that our politicians won’t do shit until the bullets start flying in their direction.
we’ve learned that they didn’t militarize the police force to protect anybody from anything they just did it
Local cops seem unable to deal with armed gunmen in a consistent manner.
“See something, say something” doesn’t work.
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The example you are giving about fighting back turned out to be in your favor.
But things could have gone wrong, especially when a whole group would have backed the other guy.
And by that you are sort of advocating a survival of the fittest which is maybe not a good idea
when you are small and timid versus some strong guy.
I believe it is not wrong to involve school personnel when bullying happens.In Europe anti bullying policies were implemented years ago. I remember reading that in newspapers.
Here is an example of a school which has anti-bullying policy :
https://www.eeb3.eu/app/uploads/2022/03/B3-Anti-bullying-Policy-EN.pdf- Our Anti-Bullying Policy is based on the principles that:
- Each individual must be treated with respect
- Bullying is never an individual problem, as it degrades the atmosphere at school.
- Bullying is a problem that can be addressed.
- All members of the school community (school staff, parents and pupils) are called upon to prevent and
react against all forms of bullying. - All members of the school community must have the opportunity to be listened to, respected and
supported.
Gavrillo Princip and Lee Harvey Oswald show it’s hardly new.
Both bullied outsiders who wanted to show the world they weren’t weak and could leave a mark on history.
Edit: your overall point about the constraints on masculinity though is very much on the mark I think, though. All the more reason to break down gender norms.
We could implement age limits for semi-auto rifles, like age 25+
Bolt-action and other non-repeating rifles / shotguns could stay at age 18
Handguns are already at age 21, maybe we should make that just revolvers or single-shot handguns age and move semi-auto to 25+
This is based on the common factor of young men using semi-auto handguns and rifles to do a lot of murders, before their critical thinking skills are fully mature and stuff
We could implement age limits for semi-auto rifles, like age 25+
It’s a start but I would actually want to push back on the policy of being able to wake up one morning and buy thousands of dollars in guns and ammo when you had zero the day before. If you want a semi-auto anything you should have to establish a history of gun use or get a certificate of need (e.g. you live in a particularly violent area). Otherwise a manual-action revolver, shotgun, or rifle and very limited ammo is all you can get.
I think first of all there is a problem with gun violence in the USA. You should address that first before analzying the steps 2 layers down the chain. And that’d be pretty effective and way easier to do than fix the mental health of millions of people. After that you shoud do that too. Make it so the nation cares for people, helps them and educates them. Make life enjoyable and reduce hatred. You can’t prevent every assassination attempt of a president, but certainly save the lives of lots and lots of other people that way.
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That we should take in consideration the Coriolis effect.
